By Jeffrey B. Aronson

The required automobile inspection – an annual ritual in most states – invokes all the fear of your significant other telling you, “We need to talk.” When your Land Rover is 42 years old, the mechanic can always find something to discuss.

The requirements vary from state to state, and even within states, but generally speaking, 19 states require inspection for safety, and another 11 test for emissions levels in certain regions. In Maine, the testing is for required accessories [wipers, lights, directional signals, horn] and for safety [brakes, rust holes in floors or sills, front end, tire tread depth], and in one county, emission levels keyed to the date of manufacture. For Series Land Rovers and early Range Rovers Maine offers an exemption; if you register your car as an antique.
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Richard Sammons is an architect in New York City who specializes in houses that do not look like glass pyramids or airline terminals, but like, well, houses. Not surprisingly, his car of choice is a Morgan Plus 8. It’s his only car and he uses it daily. In a New York Times interview, he noted “This is my only car. I take it to construction sites. You know what it’s like there. Dirt roads.”

Sammons calmed his passenger, the author of the Times’ article. When steam seemed to escape from the hood at a traffic light he insisted “It’s not overheating” pointing to the temperature gauge to prove his point. “Some antifreeze had leaked onto the engine” (No surprise here; the Morgan Plus 8 used the Rover V-8 familiar to Land Rover owners).

The story reminded me of the time that I sat in the QE I on the ferry that traverses the 90 minute ride across Penobscot Bay to this island town. I had invited a frightened passenger, a neighbor, to join me in the Land Rover instead of sliding around the slippery plastic bench seats in the small cabin. By the middle of the bay the seas pounded the ship and waves broke over the bow, and then splashed over the top and hood of the Rover. As the water cascaded from the top some leaked between the door tops and the safari top. “Oh no,” she cried, “It’s wet in here!” I leaned over to her feet under the heater matrix and put a finger in the puddle of water. Raising it to my lips I breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s only salt water,” I said happily, “not oil or antifreeze!”

She looked at me in horror. Apparently in her automotive experience, water should not enter the interior of a car. Pshaw! In my automotive experience water on the floor was vastly preferable to antifreeze [from when the heater core dissolved] or engine oil [from when the split in the valve cover gasket dripped oil in front of the airflow from the fan].

Mr. Sammons concluded that “In a city where it’s so difficult to have a car, having a boring car is really stupid,” Which is as good a reason to own a Land Rover as I have ever read.
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While stuffing the wood stove one Sunday, I was listening to the radio, in which the speaker extolled the virtues of mending clothes. As one who can barely sew a button on a shirt, I turned my attention away for a while and then stopped short. “Mending old clothes” is an awful lot like repairing old cars on your own. No one mends just any old shirt or pants; only favorite ones warrant the time and attention. And no one mends just any old car; it must have a special appeal for you to put your time and energy into it.

I have often wished for better weather when working outdoors on my Land Rovers, and I have cursed mightily when some repair had gone less than smoothly. Yet there’s a great deal of pride in doing the work yourself [or in my case, doing it again after I messed up the first repair] and learning to understand the exploded diagrams in the Service Manual or a Haynes Manual.

My Land Rovers help me earn my income so making time for maintenance and repairs is a necessity, not a luxury. I can also pretend that a vast amount of time spent reading up on Land Rovers is “work,” not “play.” Many real employers [i.e., your boss] will not see it that way. Let me recommend the Land Rover Classic Parts collection of CD’s which include technical information, service manuals and owners handbooks on every Land Rover model through the Range Rover Classic and Discovery I. Whereas the printed manuals with their big Land Rover logos on the cover might invite unwelcome inquiries about “what on earth you’re doing,” the CD opens up on your computer screen. There’s every opportunity to you to look engrossed in the latest sales figures, memo from Corporate, research, and the like while you’re secretly reading up on Land Rovers. It’s the best thing since sticking magazines inside textbooks in study hall. And you can print up the pages you need on the company printer!
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Like other owners of classic Land Rovers I don’t get to the Land Rover Centre or dealerships very often. There’s only one in dealer in Maine (Scarborough), one in New Hampshire (Bedford) and one in Vermont (Burlington), so I must admit there’s not much opportunity, either. Over the years, all three dealerships have proven to be friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about their newer vehicles. They’re also good for a cup of coffee and occasionally free internet access, but they can tell that I’m not a potential customer.

Land Rover helped jumpstart the trend with its successful Land Rover Centres. What began as some artifacts, casually dressed “sales guides,” VCR’s with Camel Trophy tapes and off-road demonstration courses, has grown into a monster. The Boston Globe suggested that one area Land Rover showroom “bears a quiet gentility that breathes ‘money.’ You almost expect to see gentlemen and ladies in jodhpurs. It’s all glass and cherry wood, with a wireless business workspace, a kitchenette with beverages, leather chairs and flat-screen TV, children’s playroom with cute miniature rocking chairs and video box. The walls are covered with vintage sports paraphernalia such as snowshoes, skis, and kayak paddles, the better to connote the rugged Land Rover lifestyle. Our favorite feature? Trevor, the owner’s friendly, shaggy Briard, greets customers with wagging tail. There’s also an off-road course that shows customers just how sturdy a Land Rover really is. Hang on.” With “customer luxury now a standard feature,” it’s no surprise that one new building in the Boston area cost $30 million to erect, features Italian marble floors and 30 – foot ceiling. There’s an espresso bar, a restaurant, a business center with Wi-Fi, a customer lounge with a marble fireplace, plasma screen televisions in the marble bathrooms, another one for the kid’s room, and a nice restaurant. Another dealership has a large bronze elephant stationed at the grand entrance.

A BMW dealership, measuring 130,000 square feet, will include a cappuccino cafe, three-level showroom, three customer lounges with leather chairs and flat-panel TVs, a fleet of loaner cars, a children’s zone, putting green, radiant heat, and two concierge desks. Yet another dealership has a putting green in case you want to practice your golf strokes.

Needless to say, you have to sell a lot of cups of designer coffee to pay for the overhead. While you’re luxuriating in a dealership more elegant than any hotel you’d likely stay at, your car is in the service department that’s scrambling to help the owner cover the costs of the building. It does help explain the hourly rates are closing in on $100/hour. I’m also guessing you don’t see a lot of salespeople dressed in the “Full Cleveland Look:” plaid pants, white belts and white shoes.

My personal showroom/service department is an open area between a large spruce tree and 30 feet of neatly-stacked firewood. The dirt lane to the 100-year old house is an off road demonstration course of its own. A convenient tarp replaces the marble mentioned above as the “floor” over the dirt surface. The ceiling opens to a stunning view of the sky and the lack of walls means that I have an unimpeded view of the sea and an intimate knowledge of the weather. The kids’ playroom requires only that they walk to the shore to play. A portable radio substitutes for the plasma screen television. There’s a wide variety of food and drink; the menu depends on whether I went to the store recently. The bathrooms are to the left of the firewood; use any tree or bush you wish. And help yourself to coffee. It’s in the kitchen.

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